


Daniel's Madness

by MissRamiun



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: A little bit of violence, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Adaptation, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Alice in Wonderland Fusion, ChangKyun is Alice, Eventual Romance, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Wonho is a stubborn but soft bunny, Wonkyun, and he needs to be protected, but not too much, don't know how that happened, guess who will, he's soft for ChangKyun, lowkey inspired by Alice's Madness au, okay I'm out, there's showki too ups, wonkyun will fight together and be cute together as well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-02-13 03:13:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12974616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissRamiun/pseuds/MissRamiun
Summary: You’re running out of time, ChangKyun. It doesn’t matter that you try to run away from your memories, your mind is falling, and soon your body will follow.If you're going crazy? That question is quite stupid, don’t you think? Why don’t you ask me something smarter? Although, to tell the truth, falling in love in the midst of this chaos denotes rather your lack of sanity... and lucidity, if I may add.And that has been your worst mistake, my dear ChangKyun. Now, there’s no turning back.





	1. Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Well hello there!! I'm back again, translating another one of my fics hehehe so! I reeeeally love Alice in Wonderland au, but I never thought about making a wonkyun adaptation about it. Then, how did this happen? I'll tell you the story of why this fic was born... one day, I was on twitter, bored as hell, and then I saw a fanart. BUT it wasn't any fanart, it was the cutest and most beautiful wonkyun fanart I've seen in my laaaaaifff  
> It was made by Erry (go check out her account @erry_kyun, her drawings are AMAZING), and I thought... WHAT IF?? So here we are (thank you so much my dear, I wouldn't have wrote this if it wasn't for you and my other sweet bean Lia <333)  
> Anyways, it was very hard to translate this, I'm really sorry in advance if there's any typo >.< lastly, I hope you enjoy the story! This chapter is kind of short, since it's the introduction to the main character, next ones will be longer <3  
> Let me know your opinion in the comments, kisses my sweet donuts~

Boseong. A small county in the southern area of Jeolla province. It didn’t have much of special, its greater attraction for the tourists was the green tea that was cultivated in its extensive and rich lands.

Population? Approximately six thousand inhabitants, and among them were Im ChangKyun, eighteen years old, and his father Im DongHun.

Most shops in the area were street markets, many of them specialized in teas and aromatic herbs. However, there was a small establishment on the corner of a quiet street that was different.

In 'The palace of jade', named for the intense green color of the roof tiles, you could find anything you wanted: from deteriorated books, yellowed and full of dust, old crockery with eccentric decorations Rococo own, to jewelry that perhaps some day belonged to a member of royalty. Surely most of them were fakes, but that was not something that bothered the owners of the business.

It was certain that no client could distinguish between imitation jewelry and real jewelry, as they have never received any complaint or demand for selling them as authentic.

These were some of the thoughts that occupied the mind of ChangKyun who, after returning from school in the afternoons, was responsible for serving the customers of his father's antique store. It would even be fun if someone came complaining to them for selling a fake, because at least he wouldn’t get so bored.

The owner's son could only be described as strange. It was a mystery even to his father who, even after so many years, still couldn’t fully understand him. His coal-black hair fell over his feline and indecipherable eyes, his straight nose and somewhat prominent for the Korean prototype was, according to DongHun, similar to his deceased mother’s, who responded to the canons of beauty of America, her homeland.

However, his mouth and thin lips were those of his father. His skin was not pale, but rather golden, and his thin, small body was not suitable for any work that required too much physical effort.

Sometimes, when he was locked in his world and isolated from everything around him, he was quiet and expressionless. Of a curious nature and full of determination, he didn’t consider himself as an asocial person, although he loved to take refuge in the comfort of silence and preferred to avoid meeting new people. And other times, he could become hilarious and eloquent, making unexpected comments in the middle of conversations that caused the rest to erupt in loud laughter.

ChangKyun was, in short, a strange person, unique in the eyes of the world.

The store wasn’t very popular. In the whole afternoon maybe five people would enter, all of them elderly people who came to browse, and that could already be said that it had been a very busy day. This is why ChangKyun, when he didn’t entertain himself imagining that a fiftyish, rich lady shouted at him for having scammed her, he sometimes resorted to read the books on the shelves in the back area while fingering the ear piercings that his father had allowed him to have at the beginning of the year, and other times he simply took a little nap on the counter.

And that was one of those occasions. The dark haired boy didn’t resist and rested his head in the palm of his hand, closing his eyes and falling into the land of dreams.

It was a pleasant dream... he was running through the broad green tea growing fields of his paternal grandparents. In his childhood, he used to spend summers in the elderly’s small country house. And even if ChangKyun didn’t have friends there, he couldn’t care less, since he was a lonely child. His imagination was always his best companion.

That dream was becoming recurrent, and it was strangely beautiful to remember. The summer of his tenth birthday was when he fell in love for the first time; he was a boy older than himself, and he didn’t even remember his name. He was content to admire him from a distance, watching how that teenager worked on the farm next to his grandparents’. It was a platonic love: the infatuation of an innocent and naive child of little age, of no experience, and who never came to ask until years later if what he had felt for another boy was wrong.

But now he was not spying on his first love among the tea plants. The summer sun hit his head, sweat dripped down his forehead, his fingers caressed the green leaves of the rows of vegetation and his bare feet sank into the damp dark earth as he ran without stopping.

In his other hand he clutched his favorite teddy tightly: a white rabbit with long ears and thin limbs, dressed in a nice ruffled shirt, whose eyes were buttons and his smile was sewn with fine threads. It was a gift from his grandmother, work of her expert hands for sewing.

Finally, his ten-year-old self dropped to the ground, totally exhausted from running, and with a satisfied smile drawn on his thin lips. Surely they would scold him for having been stained with dirt. Not that he cared.

Suddenly, a shadow covered the pleasant rays of sunlight that illuminated his face and opened his eyes, trying to find out who it was. He couldn’t see his face, in any dream he came to see him, and even so he always tried to discover the identity of the stranger.

Now came the part where the person was bending down and stroking his face with warm hands, drying the sweat and placing some strands behind his ears. ChangKyun was waiting expectantly to notice that pleasant touch on his face, and he would have felt it, if it wasn’t for the stupid Miso.

In a quick movement, the neighbor's cat jumped on the counter, taking him out of the world of dreams and causing an old Chinese vase to rest on one side of the wood to lie down. The boy woke up startled and watched in horror as the vase rolled across the table to the edge; before it fell to the ground, ChangKyun managed to react and got up from the chair to catch it just in time.

"Fuck, thank God..." he murmured in relief, noticing how his heart beat frantically at the shock. He put the vase in its place and, after verifying that nothing had happened to the delicate porcelain piece, he glared at the cat. The animal with short grayish fur and amber eyes was right in front of the counter, quietly wiping his lower parts, as if he had done nothing wrong. “Stupid cat..." he muttered under his breath. “If you come back here without my permission, I swear I'll make a stew with you.”

The threat wasn’t serious, nor is it that ChangKyun imposed respect. Miso ignored him completely and didn’t even deign to look at him; he continued preening until he felt that he was clean enough and walked slowly towards the back of the store. ChangKyun followed him with his eyes, watching him leap gracefully over a pile of books from the shelves and leave through where he always came in: a small circular window. The boy mentally noted that he had to close that window if he didn’t want to suffer any other heart attack, and so he did.

He walked to the back and stood on tiptoe to try to close it, but it was useless since it was too high. In these moments, he wanted to be like a cat to be able to jump and reach places that his thin legs had never allowed before. Having seven lives was also an advantage.

The fact that the feline had remained on the other side of the window watching him with the face of 'you are a useless human', encouraged him to show him that he was wrong.

With determination, he grabbed a high shelf with his left hand and with his foot on another shelf he pushed himself up; he placed his other foot on the shelf on the opposite side and lifted his free hand to the window, touching the glass with his fingertips and not being able to close it. ChangKyun stuck out his tongue and stretched his limb even further, wanting to see the stupid animal's face when he closed the window right in front of him.

"Just a little more..." he mumbled, beginning to feel all his muscles trembling from the physical effort and instability of his posture. He was about to make it, he just needed a little push and...

“Need help?”

The sudden question surprised him and he froze. The voice was of a young boy, something unusual in the customers who visited the store; ChangKyun couldn’t even turn his neck to see who it was because he was afraid that, at the slightest movement, he would fall flat on the ground.

He was feeling too embarrassed to have been caught in such a situation: he supposed that was the price to pay for wanting to prove to a cat that he was better than him.

_Shit, shit, shit._

He cursed himself for not having heard the clink of metal rods hanging just in front of the door indicating the arrival of a client. He took a breath and gathered the strength to answer with a minimum of dignity.

"Oh... don't worry," he managed to say with difficulty. “I have everything under control.”

“Really? Because it doesn’t look like it.”

The giggle that was accompanied by the stranger's response bothered him enough; the last thing he needed right now was someone to make fun of him. The tremor in his body began to increase: he wasn’t going to resist much longer.

"I'm _fine_ ," he insisted, wishing the client would leave, for example, to admire the jewels displayed at the front of the store, as everyone else did.

“Yeah... well, I'll stay down here. Just in case you fall.” ChangKyun pursed his lips, wanting to tell him that he didn’t need his help, but decided not to answer; instead, he would close the window and gracefully descend from the shelves to be able to serve him with a smile. Or that was his plan until the stranger opened his mouth again. “Nice views.”

His father always said that he had to put up with customers: a happy customer is a prosperous business. But that asshole was talking about his ass.

In his mind, he would have liked to get off to give that idiot a flying kick in the mouth. However, life was cruel, and all he did was blush violently and get so nervous that he ended up losing his balance. His fingers slipped from the shelf and his feet stopped having a foothold. ChangKyun wanted to die at that moment.

His back hit a body bigger than his; the stranger grabbed him under the arms firmly and prevented him from falling to the ground. Totally stiff, with his eyes wide open and breathing hard with shock, ChangKyun didn’t dare raise his head to look at his savior's face.

“Nice catch” said the boy in English, with a rather questionable accent. ChangKyun didn’t wait another second and turned away from him, brushing off his school uniform and avoiding eye contact. He could feel how the client's eyes were analyzing him, as if he were waiting for him to say something; that kind of social situations made DongHun's son very uncomfortable, he didn’t know how to start a conversation, let alone how to say thank you.

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, ChangKyun decided that it would be best to run away to the counter, and when he was about to drop any excuse to sneak away, he finally stopped to look at the boy in front of him. The words were stuck in his throat and he never said them, being totally silent while admiring the stranger: he seemed older than him, maybe four or five years older. His biker style added him a few years, but his childish face betrayed him; his hair was an unnatural white, obviously dyed and his body was broad and muscled: he was very attractive, and also intimidating.

That person imposed a lot. He was even a little scary, although the smile that decorated his pink lips and his cute ears –that stuck out a little– slightly softened his intimidating aura. Why would a person like him come to his store? Was he maybe a member of a gang or the mafia? Was he going to beat him up? Or worse: what if he was a murderer who would tear his body apart and then throw him into a river and thus leave no evidence?

Maybe that was too much. His extravagant imagination and all the mystery novels he used to read when he got bored had him to blame.

Just when ChangKyun was calculating the odds he had of being able to surround him and leave the store in a panic if that guy tried to touch him, a question took him out of his world.

“You aight?” he asked, amused at the way ChangKyun watched him in disbelief.

"Oh, yeah," he answered quickly. “If you need anything, I'll be at the counter.”

Then, he slipped away from the shelves and went to his workplace, nervous about everything that had happened and leaving behind the boy who was watching him curiously.

The client spent a lot of time wandering around the book area, occasionally picking up one and reading a few pages before putting it back in its place. ChangKyun was holding an Agatha Christie novel that he had left by the counter and pretended to be concentrating on the reading, when in reality he was watching the boy out of the corner of his eye. He listened to his footsteps creak on the wood, stop for a few seconds only to then resume his path through the different sections of books.

The mystery that Detective Poirot was trying to solve wasn’t as interesting to ChangKyun as discovering what kind of literary genre that particular guy liked.

After a while, the client returned to the front to have a look at the showcases where the jewels were displayed, leaning against the left wall of the store. His dark eyes watched with interest the different jewels and pointed the glass with his finger, turning towards ChangKyun.

“Is this really from the Joseon dynasty?” he asked in amazement as he read the little plaque that said so. ChangKyun looked up from the book and hesitated momentarily before nodding, though he was also unsure of the authenticity of those necklaces, earrings, and rings. “Cool..." he murmured, returning all his attention to the showcase. He kept staring at the jewels with his eyes lit and his mouth half-open with fascination: he seemed to be a very impressionable person.

It didn’t seem that he was going to leave soon, and ChangKyun started to get impatient. He checked on his cell phone that within ten minutes it was going to be eight o'clock in the afternoon, closing time, and he expected the client to leave by his own feet and not have to kick him out.

The boy seemed to read his thoughts and approached the counter with a lost expression; he looked everywhere, as if he was searching for something and couldn’t find it.

“Excuse me... I wanted to know if you have watches.”

“Wall clocks?” ChangKyun asked, setting the novel aside.

"No, no," he said, waving his hand. “I mean those little ones..." he tried to explain, indicating with his thumb and forefinger the size of the item he was looking for.

“Pocket-sized?”

“Yeah! One of those," he said animatedly. “Do you have them?”

ChangKyun tried to remember the place where his father kept the other junk that wasn’t exposed in the showcases and got up from the seat. He went to a dresser at the back of the store, right next to the shelves and opened the first drawer; there was a dusty scarlet-red cardboard box inside, which contained an old writing-pen and a worn-out pocket watch.

He held the watch by the chain and opened its golden casing. It was so dirty that he had to wipe the glass with the sleeve of his shirt just to find that the hands of the clock were glued in place, marking exactly seven and seven minutes in the afternoon. The numbers under the glass were partially erased, and the case was slightly dented; most likely, the gears were rusted.

Anyway, he took it to the counter, not sure if the watch would meet the client's expectations.

"We only have this one," he explained, offering it to him. The boy held it by the chain and watched it fascinated. “The interior is probably rusty, I don’t know if it can be fixed-”

“I want it.” ChangKyun didn’t have time to say anything else and cleared his throat at the interruption. The white-haired boy's eyes shone with determination and he pulled his wallet out of his leather jacket pocket. “How much does it cost?”

Changkyun himself didn’t even know that. The watch had no label, he wasn’t even sure it was for sale, so he had to improvise a bit. He examined the clock that was between the pale fingers of the boy and came to the conclusion that, despite being covered in what appeared to be gold, it was still junk.

“Sixty thousand wons.”

It was a reasonable price. The boy rummaged through his wallet and took out six ten thousand won bills, offering them with a smile; ChangKyun took the money with a slight nod and tried not to think about the amount of girls who would have fallen at that smile while stuffing the bills in the cash register.

The clock shone one last time before being tucked inside the jacket of its new owner, who said goodbye to Changkyun waving his hand in the air.

"See you around," he said, giving him one last smile. Then he opened the glass door, tinkling the rods that hung from the ceiling; however, when he stepped out of the establishment, he stopped and turned around. “Try not to fall again.”

He accompanied the comment with a playful wink and then left. ChangKyun stared at the exit with an impassive expression. But his cheeks, tinged with a slight blush, betrayed him.

_What a jerk. As if we’re going to see each other again._

He wrinkled his nose when he realized that, in fact, they would meet again if the client decided to return to the store. He continued for a while longer at the counter, too upset by the impertinent gesture to continue with the mystery novel; anyway, it was almost closing time, he didn’t have him much time to advance in the investigation of Detective Poirot.

ChangKyun hung his backpack over his uniform shirt and went outside, locking the door and trying to kick that dyed-haired idiot out of his mind.

It was very cold outside, and he cursed himself again for having forgotten his coat in class. What he needed most was to get home, have a quick dinner of noodles with his father and lock himself in his room to listen to music, read a comic book or just snuggle in his bed with his computer: his great consolation was that the next day was Saturday. The idea of doing a marathon of some anime was very attractive and helped him withstand the cold autumn wind that howled through the streets of Boseong.

The journey to his house consisted of ten minutes of traversing the shortcut of dirty and damp alleys if he wanted to avoid the main street where many of his father's friends had their clothes or aromatic herbs stalls. Nothing bothered him more than greeting those people who never got tired of pinching his cheeks and admiring how much he had grown every time they saw him.

Yes, he definitely preferred to take the shortcut.

On his journey, he rubbed his arms to get warm and began to ask himself why the client would want a damaged pocket watch. He turned the corner of the first alley, thinking that the guy with the look of an intimidating biker didn’t seem the kind of person who’d collect antique watches.

However, he couldn’t reach any conclusion since at the end of the dark alley there was a man standing, wearing a long black raincoat. ChangKyun slowed his pace to a stop, his heart pounding with nerves.

He didn’t want to be a paranoid who thought that the stranger meant to hurt him, but that day he decided it would be better to go down the main street and risk meeting his father's friends. Tightening the handles of his backpack, he swallowed and turned around with the intention of leaving the alley, but another figure dressed in a red coat was waiting for him at the other end.

He was paralyzed with fear, his whole body covered with cold sweat. Changkyun was terrified, and the fact that the darkness of the sky prevented him from seeing their faces only scared him even more. When the two strangers began to approach him at the same time, his muscles trembled violently and he looked at them alternately, not knowing what to do. Should he cry for help? Should he scream? Should he run?

_Fuck, fuck._

Suddenly, the words 'see you around’ that the client had said seemed very far away to him. A small part of his being was hoping to see him back in the store, and now he didn’t know if it would be possible.

They were approaching more and more faster. Changkyun still did nothing. He wanted to escape from there, that a hole swallowed him so that he could disappear.

And then, it happened.

A large black circle opened at his feet and his heart stopped. The vertigo went up his throat when he saw that there was no ground under his body and a strangled cry got stuck in his mouth. He started to fall and couldn’t do anything to avoid it, just see as those two men watched him from the edge of the hole.

His body was carried away by gravity, and his muscles fell asleep, resigned to the fall, only awakened by the electric waves of adrenaline that gave off his heart, the wind that crashed against his back and his twisting stomach. His blood stopped, every inch of his skin wanted to leave him to avoid being torn apart when he fell at the bottom.

But that bottom seemed to be very distant.

ChangKyun kept falling, and falling, and falling...


	2. Welcome

There was nothing crueler than a long wait before death. The anticipation of that moment only made ChangKyun, before his body hit the ground, had thought about too many things.

As, for example, about his father and his obsession with collecting antique objects. He also thought about his grandparents, his mother, and how he would have liked to meet her if an illness hadn’t taken her away when he was only two years old. Although he had never seen a photograph of her, DongHun himself claimed that he had inherited her strange sense of humor and huge imagination.

It was gratifying that a small part of his mother lived in him.

As he continued to fall, ChangKyun watched his backpack and several objects from the store descend beside him. Necklaces, dusty books whose pages fell off in the air and clocks flew through that hole with earth walls that seemed to have no end. They were probably the result of his memories in the store.

The distant and nostalgic summers he spent in his grandparents' farming field broke through in his mind and filled him completely. He wished to tell his ten-year-old self that what he felt for the boy of the farm next to his grandfathers’ wasn’t bad and that he shouldn’t be afraid to talk to him. He regretted to have kept his feelings to himself, but now there was no remedy.

Time became eternal, and his mind ended disconnecting from his body. He simply observed how the white spot he had fallen from was getting smaller and smaller. The icy wind streamed through his clothes and he closed his eyes, his muscles numb, the tips of his fingers totally frozen.

ChangKyun wondered what it would be like to die, and if life really existed after death.

He would find out soon.

Suddenly, everything around him lit up and he opened his eyes; he was no longer in the hole, but was falling through the clouds, crossing the sky at a great speed. With difficulty, he turned in the air and watched in horror as he was about to fall into a wooded area; he didn’t even have time to be afraid of the pain he was going to experience, nor to wonder how it was possible that there was a forest under the hole he fell through.

Everything happened very fast. ChangKyun covered his face with his arms when he crossed the trees, whose branches tore at his clothes and skin before falling into the water below. His body slammed against the water surface, his belly and chest having received the greatest impact. He gasped, and felt as if all his muscles and organs had exploded in the act, his skin burning and itching, so much that he wished he could tear it away.

The pain was sharp and intense. ChangKyun was floating face down, his eyes remained closed and tried to suppress the burning that consumed every inch of his body.

A few seconds passed, and his eyelids snapped open. He found that, at a small distance, was the earth bottom: the depth of the water deposit was negligible. Then, his lungs began to ask for oxygen with desperation. Was he still alive?

Flashing his arms and opening his mouth for air, ChangKyun rested his hands and knees on the ground under the water and surfaced, breathing unevenly and uneasily. He sat in the middle of the water and tried to compose himself, looking down tremulously to examine his body; his fingers covered with mud settled on his chest, which a few seconds ago was burning by the unbearable pain of the blow against the water, and he was surprised to see that there was no wound on his skin or blood that stained his white uniform shirt. His clothes were torn by scratches from the branches of the trees, soaked and dirty by the earth at the bottom of the water, but no trace of any wound.

“Fuck...” he murmured altered. How could he have survived such a fall? It was simply impossible.

His eyes settled on the place where he was: it was a kind of shallow lake, with tall trees rising in the middle, whose twisted roots jutted out from the ground and with branches that covered any crack of the sun that could bathe its greenish waters. It seemed to be a swamp.

He smelled of damp earth and some annoying mosquitoes -which he had to push aside with his hand- flew around him, but a strong stench that he still couldn’t decipher predominated over the rest.

ChangKyun pushed his wet hair back and looked up, unable to see the sky covered by the lush vegetation. Where the hell was he?

"That must have hurt," someone remarked from a distance. ChangKyun jumped and twisted his neck in search of the owner of the delicate and at the same time creepy voice. “The landing was quite disappointing though... I give you seventy points out of a hundred.”

The boy was very confused, because now the voice spoke to him from another place; he looked everywhere and still didn’t see anyone.

“Who... who are you?” he dared to ask.

“Who am I?” he spoke again, this time from above. “Your question offends me, young man.” ChangKyun looked up at the trees and finally spotted him: perched on a nearby branch, there was a cat with big amber eyes and gray fur. He was big, too big to be a cat, and he was so thin that his ribs were very marked. But the most remarkable thing was his mouth, which showed some sharp white fangs, perfect for tearing flesh: he was smiling.

ChangKyun knew those eyes too well, that even now they watched him with condescension. He was the fucking neighbor's cat.

“Miso?” he asked in surprise.

“Right, and you're the antique shop’s weirdo.”

He couldn’t believe he was talking to an animal, let alone he was treating him with such contempt; ChangKyun already had the suspicion that Miso didn’t like him, but he had just confirmed it. He was definitely dreaming.

Breathing hard, soaked to the skin and covered in mud, ChangKyun watched the cat, wondering when his imagination allowed him to dream such extravagant things.

“You're thinking that this is a dream, right?” Miso asked with a big smile, resting his emaciated head on his paws. ChangKyun was speechless and the cat sighed. “I wish it were... I'd love to wake up and get out of this hellish place, but guess what? The road to the world of humans is cut off. There is no way back. Pluff. Doesn’t exist.”

“The human world?” ChangKyun repeated, trying to put his thoughts in order. “Where are we?”

Miso got up lazily and took a couple of steps before continuing to walk upside down the branch, defying gravity and surprising ChangKyun in the process.

"Right now, we're in a dirty swamp on the outskirts of the kingdom," he said, lying down calmly. “And, if I were you, I’d stay away from the water.” ChangKyun wanted to ask him what kingdom he was talking about, but the cat's warning made him forget his question. “The creatures that dwell in this swamp never handled too well to have been exiled long ago. And probably, if you just sit there, it's a matter of seconds before your corpse ends up floating over there.”

ChangKyun looked around and watched in horror as only a few meters away from him, the water stirred, indicating that something was approaching him. It took him a few seconds to respond, and finally he got clumsily out of the water and ran to the shore. He stumbled upon reaching the mainland, and backed away using his hands and feet without taking his eyes off the murky waters from which he had just escaped.

Then, he saw huge jaws emerge from the depths and momentarily scramble on the surface only to sink back and shake his long tail covered with black scales like the night sky, splashing the terrified boy.

Miso clicked his tongue repeatedly and watched with boredom the waves on the surface of the swamp that the creature had caused.

"The poor thing has lost his dinner... and all because of me," he added with a theatricality, taking one of his bony paws to his forehead. “You own me a big one, young man. It’d have been fun to see you being devoured by one of those repulsive hybrids.”

However, ChangKyun didn’t listen. He stared at the swamp, noticing that the remains of a body floated to one side, waving slowly and giving off the strong smell of rotting flesh that had previously flooded his nostrils. His heart beat against his chest wildly: he almost died again. That dream was a fucking nightmare.

Miso continued speaking while ChangKyun got up as best he could and left without looking back, rushing when the cat called him to come back. His head was bombarded by questions as he ran through the dark forest: what did those men in the alley want? How was it that he had gone from walking home to being trapped in that nightmare? And most importantly: why was that dream so... real?

ChangKyun knew that when he dreamed, his body felt light, as if floating in a cloud, and the illogical events that were happening around him had no consequence on him. But the pain he had felt when falling was too real to be a dream.

Even the big amber eyes of the cat and his sinister smile remained vivid in his mind as he crossed the forest as fast as he could. The fog covered the trees and he had no idea where he was going; he just tried to dodge the branches that stood in his way.

There came a point where his throat was aching by the lack of oxygen and he had to stop to take a breath, leaning on an old tree and wiping his sweat with the wet sleeve of his shirt. His torn clothes had stuck to his body, as had his wet hair to his forehead, and the mud had adhered to the palms of his hands and his pants.

He felt dirty, he was cold, he was tired and his muscles ached from running, but he had to keep running away in case the cat or the frightening creature was following him. Suddenly, the crunch of some branches caught ChangKyun’s attention and all his senses were alarmed, walking hesitantly through the fog.

“Hello?” There was no response to his call, but he noticed that some footsteps were getting closer and he looked nervous everywhere. Then, he saw what appeared to be a human figure walking in a hurry not far from him, through the trees in the darkness. The possibility that it was a normal person encouraged him to follow him, first hesitantly, then more quickly seeing that the one being chased was running faster and faster.

When he began to reach him, he could see that person more clearly: he was a human, there was no doubt. He had to ask for his help and find out where the hell he was.

“Wait!” ChangKyun was so focused of the stranger who was running away from him that he almost tripped on a protruding root of the ground. “Please, wait!” he exclaimed again, practically out of breath.

The stranger didn’t listen to his pleas and he quickened his pace, becoming unattainable for ChangKyun. His eyesight was beginning to cloud with exhaustion, his lungs burned and his limbs weighed three times the normal. The exhaustion won the battle and took control, causing the boy this time to fall when his foot ran into another snaking root.

He hit his head on the ground and yet he could no longer feel any pain: the cold earth and the moss were nice to feel against his burning skin. His eyelids began to close, the last thing they saw was that the blurry figure that had previously ran away from him, now approached at a slow pace, making his way through the fog and finally revealing his face, which ChangKyun couldn’t see as he had fainted.

 

————— ♣ —————

 

A slight tinkling was what started to bring ChangKyun back to reality. He opened his eyes slowly, that simple action being a huge effort. He was lying on a soft, warm bed, and from the ceiling hung many threads with colored beads, which glowed slightly when a timid light reached its surface. Circular structures with threads woven in the center and with feathers of many colors, which ChangKyun recognized as the dream catchers that his grandmother used to place in the bedrooms, also hung next to the other decorations.

An unmistakable aroma of tea mixed with the smell of earth and something sweet that he couldn’t distinguish danced around the room, awakening his senses little by little.

His muscles didn’t hurt so much anymore, only a few punctures forced him to lie down and not get out of bed. He studied the place where he was, and couldn’t help but be surprised to see that the walls were made of earth; the warmth of the room and the blanket around him made him feel welcome, but his whole interior stirred in anguish: he wished with all his might to had awakened in the antique shop or at home, not in the bed of a stranger. He began to wonder how long that nightmare was going to last, clinging to the hope that he was dreaming.

He heard the door opening and he swallowed. His gaze quickly fell on the person who entered and who, silently closing the door, took a seat on a stool beside the bed. Dark eyes met his and pink lips gave him a warm smile that would have reassured him if he hadn’t recognized the face of his owner.

With a black beret covering his immaculate white hair and a thin loose shirt that matched his skin as pale as snow, the boy he saw in his father's shop stared right back at him. ChangKyun was left speechless, speaking the opposite instead.

“Do you feel better?”

His voice was incredibly soft, as if he were afraid of frightening him. His face was that of the boy in the store, but his aura was not intimidating, but rather warm and appealing. Were they even the same person?

Changkyun nodded, unable to respond with words and to look away from those hypnotizing dark eyes.

“I'm glad. You should drink something hot and eat a little, I'm sure you're hungry," he explained, looking at the small table next to him, where a steaming cup of tea and some pastry rested on a plate. ChangKyun turned his neck in that direction, realizing that he was dying of hunger and thirst, but for some reason his stomach had shrunk in the presence of that boy. He shook his head faintly on the pillow again, this time denying his offer of food.

The white-haired didn’t insist and instead looked at his own hands clasped on his legs, covered by a pair of tight black pants that fit perfectly to their shape; his lips had stopped smiling and his eyes hid something that was far from ChangKyun's understanding.

"I'm not going to hurt you, so you don’t have to be afraid.”

Maybe it was imprudence on the part of ChangKyun, and he felt that he must be afraid of being in the bed of a total stranger. But fear was the least of his worries right now: he wanted answers, he needed them, and the anxiety of not knowing what was happening consumed him inside.

“You’re human.” The sudden affirmation of the older drew the black-haired boy from his thoughts, and he returned his attention to the dark eyes that refused to look at him until a few seconds later. “Your smell... is human.”

_My smell?_

Changkyun looked at him bewildered, because he seemed to be talking about a different species than his. Was he not a human? He slowly sat up and laid back on the pillows; it took him a moment to find his voice to ask what had just crossed his mind.

“Aren’t you... like me?” he asked in a weak tone, afraid of the answer. The white-haired boy smiled ironically and looked away momentarily.

"I suppose a part of me still is," he replied with hidden bitterness. They remained silent; the stranger gave no further explanation and leaned slightly over the bed, a glint of anxiety in his eyes. “May I ask… what’s your name?”

ChangKyun didn’t know whether to trust him. Maybe telling him his name wasn’t the most prudent thing to do, he had admitted he wasn’t human, but his appearance said otherwise. And that reassured him a little. After all, that person was taking care of him, right?

“Im ChangKyun.”

The disappointment in his face upon hearing his name was evident. He pressed his lips together and looked down, nodding slightly.

“I see...” he murmured without being able to hide his discontent. Changkyun was surprised by his reaction, he wondered if he expected him to be someone else. Suddenly, something in the albino's expression changed: his eyes were no longer warm, but rather cold and distant. “This place is very dangerous for humans, you should go home," he said dryly.

Then he got up from the stool with the intention of leaving, but ChangKyun grabbed his wrist by an impulse.

“Wait.” The older boy remained motionless, raising an eyebrow and waiting for him to speak. “I... I really want to go home. But I don’t know how to do it, I don’t know what to do to get out of here," he explained anxiously, wishing the boy could help him go back.

"I'm sorry," he replied with a soft smile, devoid of emotion, "but I can’t help you. It’s no longer so easy to return to the world of humans.”

ChangKyun's hopes died in that instant. His body trembled slightly, and he still refused to let him go without first answering more questions.

“Where are we? Why did I ended up here?” he insisted, his heart agitated. “This is a dream, right?”

The boy sighed and watched him with some understanding, perhaps also pity.

“There are other worlds besides yours, parallel realities. And this is one of them.” So it was not a dream. ChangKyun's chest tightened at the thought and he opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted. “I don’t know why you've arrived here. Each person has a motive, but if you don't know it yourself, you’ll find out eventually.”

Then, he raised his arm that wasn’t being held by ChangKyun and took off the beret that covered his hair, rebelling something that the raven-haired had never seen. Two long, white ears, once hidden behind his head, rose slowly into the air.

Fear crossed Changkyun's body and he was breathless; he loosened the grip of his wrist, feeling his skin turn pale at the vision in front of him. That guy had ears. He had some fucking rabbit ears on his head. He really wasn’t human.

“See?” The white-haired inquired in a whisper, looking down at the floor. “This is not a place for humans.”

However, ChangKyun didn’t let go. Something prevented him to do so. He was afraid, but he couldn’t look away from what his hat had been hiding: they were real. The inside of the ears was pink, the light that came from the bedside table made some filaments that decorated the rosy skin glow, extending like thin branches upwards; his fur as white as the hair on his head wrapped them in a delicate layer. They seemed very fragile.

His left ear trembled slightly and ChangKyun swallowed, looking down at his face. The way in which those penetrating eyes watched him, waiting for his reaction, encouraged him to speak, even if it was with a tiny voice.

“What's your name?” There was fear in his voice, but he managed to disguise it thanks to his expressionlessness.

The stranger was a little surprised: he expected that little boy to scream when he saw his ears or to look at him with disgust, and not to be interested in his name suddenly. That child was different.

“...Wonho.”

They remained silent for a while; ChangKyun finally released him and dropped his hand on the bed, not knowing what to think or what else to say. He didn’t even know why he had asked him his name. He just wanted to know.

“You should rest, so that tomorrow you can leave," Wonho warned finally, avoiding eye contact and putting on his beret, causing his white ears to fall back behind his head. He walked to the door, his leather boots rattling on the wood of the floor and, after putting on a maroon jacket that rested on a hanger, left without looking back.

ChangKyun stared at the dark red door he had left. His heart rumbled in his chest, and at the same time he felt a huge emptiness. Could he really not go home with his father? Was he trapped in that place so sinister... so twisted?

He pressed the sheets between his fingers, trying to calm down: Wonho had said that everyone had a reason why they came to that place, right? So, what was his motive? Maybe he just had to find out so he could go home.

He just prayed that he could discover it soon to get out of that fucking nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my sweet donuts! Hope you're enjoying the story <33 the soft bunny appeared!! He's so stubborn, but he'll get softer for our lil ChangKyunnie huhuhu  
> Oh and one more thing, just wanted to say that you have the playlist of this story on this link!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OlHrefnxC0&list=PLZoJ0CzGYhuiDZALIf4HDzs2Fnshc2X7y
> 
> Lots of hugs and kisses! <3333


	3. The Red Guard

The cup of tea that was on the bedside table, waiting to be drunk, had stopped steaming long time ago. ChangKyun laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling where the strings of beads and feathers tinkled delicately, apparently watching over his sleep.

Until he couldn’t stand it anymore and got up. Perhaps he was unconsciously waiting for Wonho to return; maybe the discovery that he wasn’t really human should have scared him, but he had taken care of him when he fainted. He didn’t know if he was a bad person or not, and a part inside him wanted to trust him.

And yet another part of him was screaming at him that he had to get out of there. The coldness with which he had treated ChangKyun didn’t give him a good feeling, and he shouldn’t trust him blindly. Besides, Wonho had told him that he wanted him to leave, and he wasn’t going to wait until the next morning to fulfill his request.

He had to find out why he had come to this world, and he wasn’t going to discover it if he stayed all day lying on a bed.

Nervousness flowed through his veins as he went through the room in search of his shoes. He still wore the torn clothes of his uniform, so he rummaged in an old closet among Wonho's clothes and pulled out a black shirt and a leather jacket of the same color. Anyway, he wouldn’t see him again, so he didn’t even have time to feel bad about stealing his clothes.

Although his pants were stained with dry mud, he didn’t change them since those in the closet were a size much larger than his own. He tied the laces of his school shoes and left through the red door, arriving at a small earth tunnel that gave place to what appeared to be the kitchen. The heat that reigned in all the rooms had gone from being pleasant to suffocating, causing a thin layer of sweat to form under his bangs.

It was like a burrow.

ChangKyun intended to get out of there without taking anything else, but his guts roared at the smell of food that came from two bowls covered by a rag on the wooden countertop. He approached cautiously, looking towards the door that faced the outside judging by the sun's rays that came out through the slit below, and removed the garment that covered the food. In one of the bowls there were different cut vegetables, not yet cooked, and in the other some kind of dried fish, chopped until being almost crumbled.

He wasn’t a big fan of fish, but he didn’t hesitate to gulp down his contents in a few seconds using only his fingers, a little distracted by the thin layer of smoke that an incense stick gave off inside a wooden bottle and by the sound of the three clocks on the kitchen's earth walls: he wondered why the hell Wonho would want three of them. He also ate the raw vegetables and, although he was dying of thirst, the urge to get out of there before Wonho returned was greater than his need to drink some liquid.

After wiping his hands with the cloth and his mouth with the back of his hand, he hurriedly tried to open the door. ChangKyun turned the golden knob repeatedly, but of course, it was closed; he scanned the place in search of some other exit, there were not even windows. The only light that illuminated the place were some glass containers, scattered around the countertop, inside which were some melted candles.

He returned to the bedroom where his torn clothes lay on the unmade bed and tried his luck with another door that was next to the mattress. This time, it gave way to a poorly lit room; there were shelves with boxes by the walls and the circular, tiled floor shone with the light that came from the other side of the door that was right in front of him: it was another exit.

Relief flooded his body and he crossed the room decidedly, but an object to his right caught his attention and stopped, making ChanKyun’s feline eyes stare in that direction. He had to leave and, nevertheless, that wooden chest with black straps was inviting him to come closer and look inside. And so he did.

The padlock was off hook, a sign that Wonho had forgotten to close it. Curiosity crossed every tip of his being and when he crouched in front of the chest and began to open it slowly, his heart beat hard for the expectation of discovering what was on the other side.

The brightness of the sharp blades was the first thing that caught his attention: inside there was a wide variety of knives and other weapons, stacked with little care on top of each other. He might need one if he was going to have to defend himself against creatures like those of the swamp.

Ignoring the chill that ran through his body as he remembered the horrible vision of a corpse floating in the water, he raised his fingers and picked up the knife that was at the top: his not very long and shiny blade was slightly curved and the black leather handle had three small red stones embedded. It was so pretty.

"You're coming with me," ChangKyun murmured, lost in thought, not taking his eyes off the beautiful knife.

He got up and put the weapon inside one of the belt loops of his pants, designed to hold the belt he never wore. The fact that he had something to defend himself gave him a little courage, although the warm touch of leather under his fingers when he held the knife had frightened him: he was finally ready to get out of there. Or so he thought.

 

————— ♣ —————

 

At first, ChangKyun moved cautiously when he walked away from Wonho's house. When he left the place, he could verify that, indeed, it was a burrow: the house was inside a small rise of land, right next to the forest for which he had been chasing him.

He looked everywhere, listening for all the sounds that the birds and some small animals made in the distance, his hand always on the handle of the knife in case he came across a creature that tried to attack him. He walked aimlessly, still without encountering any trace of civilization; he was hoping to meet some other human who was willing to help him, although he saw it as unlikely.

After half an hour of crossing and leaving the dark forest full of mist, he finally reached another area where, at least, the trees didn’t cover the last rays of sun of the day that crossed the cloudy sky. Soon it was going to be dark. His shoes creaked on a dirt road surrounded by willows, whose branches fell like green waterfalls and swayed calmly when the breeze combed them: they could be beautiful to admire if not for the grotesqueness of the situation.

ChangKyun began to relax and, despite Wonho's warnings, he didn’t see it as a very dangerous place. Removing the swamp incident, it didn’t seem that many threats haunted him, rather it was a fairly calm place.

But of course, he was wrong. Voices in the distance resounded a few meters in front of him and all his muscles tensed; he hurried to hide behind the trunk of a willow tree on his right and peeked out, holding his breath as he heard the voices approaching.

The branches of the willow partially covered his vision, and yet he was able to see them clearly. Two adult men, apparently human and clad in armor, were advancing on the dirt road, talking among themselves. Both wore several knives and a sword in their leather bands tied at the waist.

"You should have seen her, HyunWoo," said the shorter of the two, dark-skinned, with jet-black hair down to the neck, and armor black as coal. The other man, with short hair, tanned skin, slanted eyes, significantly taller and corpulent than the other, attended the speech with disinterest. His armor was a very dark red, like the color of blood. “It's been a while since I met a woman like her, but believe me, she's amazing.”

“You know you're talking about a prostitute, right?”

The man with Arabic features gave him an annoyed look and stopped walking, crossing his arms.

“Siara is not a whore.”

“You met her in a brothel, Khalil.” The shorter one was going to protest, but before he did, HyunWoo interrupted him. “I'm just telling you the truth," he said calmly. “I may also pass by there someday. How did you say the place was called? 'The blue caterpillar'?”

Khalil nodded and, only when HyunWoo resumed his way and walked a few meters away, he seemed to realize something and shouted at him from a distance.

“Don’t even think about touching Siara! Do you hear me?! I'll kill you if you do! I don’t care you're the captain of the Red Guard!” he exclaimed in frustration, only receiving a distant laugh in response. The man snorted and leaned right over the tree in front of the one ChangKyun used as a hiding place.

"Fuck, it’s always me who do the guards," he complained to himself, crossing his arms. “As if there were to be some human around here.”

ChangKyun froze, fearing that if he moved any muscle, he would make a noise that would attract the soldier's attention. Even though his left hand was tight on Wonho's knife, he didn’t have the slightest confidence in using it: he was terrified. He swallowed and tried to think of a plan to avoid an open confrontation, something that would allow him to flee from there without being seen.

However, any plan that could have formed in his head in the space of ten seconds was in vain, since a branch creaked under his feet. The noise reached the ears of Khalil who, frowning, separated from the trunk of the willow and began to walk in his direction. ChangKyun felt his stomach rise to his throat as he heard the footsteps approaching him, and his body covered with an unpleasant cold sweat. He couldn’t think of anything anymore, he was too scared.

_Shit. What do I do now?_

He heard the soldier push away the willow branches and unsheathe a sharp sword; he closed his eyes tightly before committing the first imprudence that crossed his mind. ChangKyun came out of his hiding place with his hands raised, leaving his knife in the trouser belt behind his back. Khalil jumped and pointed his sword at him.

“Ca- calm down!” ChangKyun said as calmly as possible. “Don’t hurt me, I- I'm not a human.”

“Who the fuck are you?” The soldier asked, visibly upset and without lowering his weapon. Because of the way his body trembled, he didn’t look like a veteran, but rather a novice. Maybe that would help him get away with the situation.

"I..." the dark haired boy hesitated, biting his lip and trying to find a credible excuse, "I belong to the Red Guard," he finally clarified, recalling the small conversation he had just eavesdropped on.

The mention of the Red Guard was enough for Khalil to lower the weapon a little, but distrust was still present in his eyes.

“What were you doing hidden over there? And your armor? Why aren’t you wearing it?”

The bombing of questions caught ChangKyun off guard, who cleared his throat nervously before explaining himself.

“I- I’m not on duty today.”

His words sounded more convincing in his head, and when he uttered them, he prayed that the soldier wouldn’t notice the deception. A few seconds of pure tension passed, but ChangKyun could breathe again as soon as Khalil lowered the weapon completely and tucked it into his belt.

_How can he be so stupid? I'm not on duty today? Really?_

"Show me your mark," the soldier demanded suddenly, trying to sound authoritative. ChangKyun's body tensed again and he fell silent, not knowing what to do. If he asked what mark to show him, he would be betraying himself. “The mark of the Red Guard, come on, show it to me," he insisted, taking a step towards him, pointing to his own neck. ChangKyun noticed that, in the dark skin of his neck, he had engraved some kind of diamond with more decorations that he couldn’t see. He was screwed.

"Uh... I..." he stammered nervously, stepping back instinctively and knowing that the only way out now was to run. Khalil leaned closer to him and wrinkled his nose, as if he had caught a smell he didn’t like. Then, he remembered that Wonho had told him that he smelled like a human and cursed himself: did he really give off a smell that betrayed him?

Without waiting a moment longer, he went around the trunk and ran as fast as he could along the dirt road, mentally scolding himself for not having fled before.

“Hey, come back here!”

ChangKyun took longer strides, breathing hard and pushing his tired legs to the limit. The night was already falling, the sky tinged with orange and an intense dark blue, the cold air coming through his mouth and freezing his lungs. Little by little, he slowed down and the soldier reached him. Khalil's body crashed into his and they rolled on the ground, leaving him on top of Changkyun and pulling a knife from his belt.

Profiling a groan, the little boy turned around as best he could and grabbed the opponent's forearms with his hands bruised by the fall just as he was about to stick the weapon in his neck. The sharp tip of the blade brushed against his skin, but ChangKyun pulled upward to keep it from sinking into his body, breathing hard and whimpering with fear.

Suddenly, a lightning crossed his mind and he remembered having been in a similar situation in the past: someone was holding him to the ground, and he struggled to free himself in vain. That blurred scene, which he didn’t even know if it was real, smelled of damp earth. Surely it was a dream he had, or an illusion.

"I'll fucking kill you," Khalil hissed with anger in his bloodshot eyes.

ChangKyun’s limbs trembled violently, but he couldn’t stop resisting because if he didn’t, it would be his end. The terror and adrenaline ran through every extension of his being, the cynicism in the eyes of the soldier and his tensed jaw made him understand how real that world was, and how real and close his death was if he didn’t keep fighting.

He couldn’t die, he had to go home. He had to be with his father. He had to get his life back.

Making a last effort, ChangKyun was slowly winning the battle and the knife moved away from his neck. With his right hand, the boy grabbed the knife by its sharp blade, cutting the skin of his palm in the process, but managing to turn the weapon upwards so that it aimed at Khalil instead of him.

His hand burned in an unbearable fire, blood trickled down his wrist and his chest rose and fell uncontrollably. In a final move, ChangKyun managed to sink the knife into Khalil's neck.

The brown eyes of the soldier widened and his mouth remained ajar, as if he wanted to scream, but he had no voice. When blood began to come out from the sides of the knife, ChangKyun realized what he had just done and watched in horror as life faded from Khalil's face. His body, which gave a couple of spasms while gasping for air, stopped moving after a few seconds and stayed like a sack of stones on ChangKyun, crushing him to the ground.

The hair strands of the dead soldier fell on ChangKyun's face, who was in shock and still clung tightly to the knife with which he had taken his life. All his muscles trembled, and his eyes reddened with an impending crying that never came out.

He had just killed a person. With his own hands.

He couldn’t move, the heavy body pressed him against the earth and his muscles were too weak to respond. Suddenly, someone put a foot on the side of the corpse that lay on top of ChangKyun and rolled him across the ground to remove him from the boy.

Immediately afterwards, that person squatted beside him, observing him in silence. It took a few seconds for ChangKyun to react and he turned his neck slowly, still shaking from what had just happened.

With his maroon jacket –decorated with a few golden buttons– and his black hat that pulled back his ears, Wonho said nor did nothing, just scanned him with his dark, piercing eyes. Maybe there was a tinge of concern in them, but it was quickly hidden when they settled on his trembling hands, stained with his own blood and Khalil's, which stretched from the cuffs of his shirt and wrists. In a soft movement of eyelashes, Wonho noticed the knife that ChangKyun had stolen, now stained with dirt, lying on the ground a few meters away from them.

“I told you it was a dangerous place for humans.” ChangKyun looked at him with wide eyes and without getting up from the ground; his heart was going at a thousand an hour, and yet the gentle voice of the boy had managed to calm him down a bit. He didn’t even wonder when Wonho had arrived. “You took my clothes, you stole my kukri... and you didn’t even use it to defend yourself. Do you even know how to hold a knife, brat?”

Seeing that the boy wasn’t going to answer, Wonho sighed and pulled his arm to help him sit up. ChangKyun continued looking at him with a pale face, like a scared puppy; Wonho's features made him momentarily forget the terrifying grimace on the soldier's face when life slipped from his body.

The white-haired boy clicked his tongue as he examined the condition of ChangKyun's jacket.

"It was my favorite jacket," he mumbled a little annoyed. “Now how are you going to repay me, huh?”

The little boy let out a sob and they stayed silent for a long time, staring at each other, until ChangKyun dropped his head on the older boy's chest. Wonho was paralyzed and watched him with wide eyes.

“ChangKyun?” he called, but the boy raised one of his bruised hands and clung to his maroon jacket, still hiding his face. Wonho sighed and patted him on the back before wrapping his arm awkwardly around him, not knowing how to comfort him. “Brat... if you want to get out of here, you're going to have to learn to survive," he explained slowly, trying to make the boy in shock understand him.

ChangKyun closed his eyes and squeezed Wonho's jacket, trying to concentrate on the scent of the older boy's clothes and not on the traumatic event he had just experienced: it smelled of incense and vanilla. The boy still said nothing, so Wonho cleared his throat and rubbed his back lightly to get his attention.

“Are you listening?” he asked as delicately as he could.

"Help me…" ChangKyun muttered against his shirt. Wonho looked down and came across two large dark orbs that looked at him desperately.

“I told you I can’t-”

“Please.”

Wonho swallowed his words at the trembling plea. He watched him carefully, looking for the first time at his face: he seemed innocent... just as he had been at the time. Sweet innocence was one of the first things that life took from you, that was a lesson that Wonho would never forget. Whether it was witnessing a death, provoking it himself, seeing how violence and cruelty were born and grew around him, unable to do anything to avoid it.

And he had just witnessed the death of that small part of ChangKyun.

Finally, he let out a heavy sigh and turned his neck toward the end of the road, and then to the opposite side. He gently pushed ChangKyun away and picked up his kukri from the floor, placing it next to another knife in his belt and crouching down next to the dark haired boy.

"Come on," he said, helping him to his feet. Seeing that his legs were weak, he put an arm around his waist and helped him to hold on. “At night there are usually more soldiers on the outskirts of the kingdom. We must hurry before they arrive.”

“Where are we going?” ChangKyun asked uncertainly, his eyes drifting towards Khalil's body. Wonho realized this and gave him a squeeze to redirect his attention to him and stop looking at the corpse.

"To a safe place," he answered with determination, beginning to walk in the opposite direction the soldiers had arrived. “My house is not an option, they know where I live, and if they find the body they’ll go there to look for answers.”

"But... we can’t leave him there," ChangKyun argued, turning his neck back. Suddenly, Wonho stopped and held him firmly by the shoulders.

“ChangKyun, there's no time for that. He was nobody, okay?” he said authoritarian, his voice calm. Fear was present in the boy, who was unable to minimize the death of the soldier, and still nodded weakly; Wonho lightly brushed his dirt-stained cheek and tried to treat him with greater understanding despite they were running out of time. “Everything will be fine. You just have to trust me, okay?” ChangKyun nodded even more sheepishly and swallowed, feeling strangely calm by his words and his sincere eyes that shone in the night light.

“Good, come on now. I don’t want the Red Guard to see me with a human," he explained, taking ChangKyun by the waist and resuming their path. The human had no idea of the fate that awaited them, but he wasn’t afraid to follow that strange creature that had decided to help him in his time of greatest need.

Giving him his trust had been a reckless act and, even so, the phrase ‘everything will be fine’ gave him the consolation in which he needed to take refuge desperately; he kept repeating those words in his mind again and again, until his heart settled down and his mind ceased to be an absolute chaos.

He had no choice but to believe in them if he didn’t want to lose his sanity and hope to get out of there alive.


	4. What does being a human mean?

The cold danced in the air and pierced the skin of anyone who was wandering through the forest at night. But that wasn’t an impediment for ChangKyun to get lost in the memories of his childhood summers, which allowed him to feel a slight warmth in his heart, even at the tips of his fingers.

His dream was the same as all previous ones, the only difference was that the sky was no longer clear, but gray clouds partially covered the shining sun. But the scorching heat was still there, as was the damp earth beneath his feet, the smile on his lips and his favorite stuffed toy held firmly by his hand.

And again, a figure whose face he couldn’t see crouched in front of him and stroked his face with great delicacy. He woke up when the soft fingers placed a lock of hair behind his ear, wondering if he would ever discover who that person was.

Maybe it was his mother...

Now he was awake, and the cold of the night struck him cruelly, reminding him that he was lying on the grass at the foot of a tree, far from the path of the willows from which they had ran away. The palm of his right hand burned and throbbed with pain: the cut made when he grabbed the knife by the edge was getting worse, and he wrinkled his nose when he noticed the unpleasant smell that the blood of the wound gave off.

ChangKyun tried to reconcile the dream, but the death in Khalil's eyes was still present in his head. He ended up giving up when he couldn’t get that horrible image out of his mind and stood up with all his aching muscles from sleeping on the ground.

Wonho was a few feet away from him, sitting on the grass, the light of the crescent moon bathing his bare white hair from his black beret; his jacket rested at his side, revealing the loose shirt that covered his pale body. But what caught ChangKyun's attention were his thin ears: they were raised to the sky, and his fur shone even more than his hair. They seemed almost translucent.

He didn’t want to bother him because he seemed to be locked in his thoughts, in a world incomprehensible to ChangKyun, but in which, at the same time, he wanted to enter. Wonho aroused a tremendous curiosity in him, he longed to read his thoughts; and yet he was sure that, even with such power, his emotions would remain something indecipherable.

The black haired boy hesitated a few seconds before approaching him and sitting on his left. Wonho’s ears descended, hiding behind his head, and his pale hands held a golden watch that, as soon as he noticed the human's presence, was tucked into a pocket of his black pants. It seemed to be the same watch he bought at the antique store.

What connection would that world have with his? First he had run into the boy in the store, and he also had the same pocket watch, but obviously they were two different people who only shared their faces. Would there be another ChangKyun in that other reality?

“Can’t sleep?” Wonho asked after a moment of silence; both had been watching the night sky covered with stars and illuminated by a moon of a bluish hue, different from that of his world, and they had forgotten to start a conversation. Wonho's shy aroma of incense and vanilla was also a slight distraction.

“…No.”

“Nightmares?” ChangKyun decided to lie and nodded slightly. “I’m the same," Wonho confessed, his face tired, two dark gray circles under his eyes confirming it.

ChangKyun wondered if he should have them too. He had fallen into a twisted world, killed a person and was trapped without any hope of being able to return home... and, even so, he had been able to sleep, even if it had been for a short time.

He didn’t know what to say and looked down at his hands, staring at the bloodstains on the leather jacket that was a little too big for him. He had already tortured himself all the way there with the image of Khalil's death, so he preferred not to bring that topic to the conversation.

“I'm sorry about your jacket.”

A fleeting smile crossed Wonho's lips and he shrugged.

"Don’t worry, brat. You can keep it.”

ChangKyun wrinkled his nose for the nickname and still didn’t protest.

“You said it was your favorite...” he argued lowering his tone of voice.

"I like to dramatize things," Wonho said simply, finally turning his neck to look at him. ChangKyun noticed how his eyes grew smaller when he smiled, and also in his tiny nose that was totally opposite to his. However, his ears stayed down: maybe that had something to do with his mood.

They fell back into a silence that was interrupted only by the breeze that swung the nearby trees and the squawks of an animal he didn’t identify. He just hoped it wasn’t a creature like the one in the swamp.

“How did you find me?” ChangKyun finally asked, hugging his legs and ignoring the throbbing pain in his right hand. Wonho was so distracted pulling little strands of grass that ChangKyun came to think he hadn’t heard his question. “Were you following me?”

“What? No!” His exaggerated reaction and how his ears rose immediately was kind of funny and he laughed softly. Wonho cleared his throat and tried to explain himself more calmly. “I... I was heading to a friend's place and it turned out that I found you by chance. End of story.”

ChangKyun muttered an 'oh' and returned to direct his glance towards the sky without losing the smile. The way his left ear had given a small tremor might be a sign that he had become nervous, or that he was lying.

And then, the state in which Wonho had found him, the soldier's bloodshot eyes and the stench of death returned to his mind and he stopped smiling; he observed his right hand and he traced with his eyes the line of the cut that decorated his surface: the edges were swollen, stained with dried blood, and the pain did nothing but increase. It was probably infected.

The white-haired boy looked at him out of the corner of his eye and, after a while struggling whether to do it or not, finally let out a heavy sigh and took off his shirt from inside his pants. ChangKyun watched in surprise as Wonho looked at his precious garment with adoration before grabbing the kukri from his belt and cutting a strip from the bottom.

Without giving ChangKyun time to protest, Wonho took his injured hand gently and began to wrap it with the piece of shirt that had been cut.

"I loved this shirt," he muttered with some sadness, concentrating on bandaging his hand. The idea of Wonho treating his clothes as if they were his sons made him suppress a smile as he watched him work. ChangKyun went from looking at his pale fingers that wrapped the cut diligently, to admire his features so intensely that he didn’t go unnoticed by Wonho. “You'll end up making a hole in my head if you keep looking at me like that," he commented, being aware of the careful observation he was being subjected to and that was making him nervous.

There was a question that burned in ChangKyun’s chest since he knew him and that, after gathering enough courage, he decided to raise.

“What are you?”

The direct question surprised Wonho, who stopped bandaging him without looking into his eyes just to resume his work a few seconds later.

“You're very curious, huh?” he asked with a forced smile.

"You said only part of you was human," ChangKyun continued, unable to stop now that he had already started. “So... what are you exactly?”

Wonho refused to establish eye contact even when he had finished wrapping the piece of shirt. He still held his hand when he began to speak.

“People usually call us in different ways, but the most common is 'hybrid'.” ChangKyun remembered hearing that term before, and it dawned on him that this was how Miso called the swamp creature. His stomach cringed at the possibility that Wonho was of the same species. “Some inhabitants of this world have less animal traits, like me. And many others have forgotten that they were once human," he explained sadly.

“So... you were humans before?” he asked almost in a whisper. Wonho nodded and finally released his hand, looking down at his lap. “But why? I mean, how did you end up being... like that?”

"There is no reason," he said sharply. “All this madness started because of a fucking whim of the Queen of Hearts.”

_Queen of Hearts? Like the one in the poker deck?_

The anger hidden behind Wonho’s words sent chills to ChangKyun, who listened attentively to his speech.

“When she came to power, she simply decided that her subjects didn’t have the right to be human. If you submitted without resistance, you were lucky and could keep most of your human features. If you didn’t... she cut off your head or she transformed you into a beast, a monster that couldn’t even remember its name. It was like a mark, a symbol that that person had dared to disobey his queen.”

ChangKyun listened to everything with wide eyes, received too much information at once and was still processing it: had he said that they were being transformed? Was he talking about magic or something like that?

“But what about the Red Guard?” he asked confused. “The soldiers are human, why didn’t she transform them?”

Wonho's jaw tensed at the question and he didn’t respond immediately. Maybe ChangKyun had asked too much.

“Do you know what does being a human mean?” ChangKyun thought momentarily the answer until he shook his head weakly. “It means being free. That's why the Red Guard soldiers stopped being human once they swore loyalty to that monster.”

“But they're still human...” the dark-haired murmured, receiving an annoyed look from Wonho that indicated he wasn’t understanding his reasoning. Maybe he shouldn’t have made that comment.

“They submitted to the queen without hesitation, preferring to wear a mark on the neck that turns them into animals, like us hybrids. Preferring to be trained since their childhood to kill even the innocent people. Preferring to stop being human despite maintaining the appearance of one.” ChangKyun felt a chill from the obvious anger of his speech. “Would you call that being a human?”

Wonho spoke quickly, without waiting for an answer in return. ChangKyun remained silent, realizing that the white-haired boy had a fervent hatred for the Red Guard. He felt an enormous curiosity to discover the origin of that hatred.

The hybrid let out a sigh and relaxed the body to continue the conversation calmer.

"That's why this isn’t a safe place for humans, brat," he explained. “If the Red Guard find you, they’ll take you to the king. KiHyun is just like his mother, he won’t have compassion.” Wonho looked with great seriousness at ChangKyun before continuing talking. “You can’t go home if you stop being human.”

The black haired boy swallowed, distressed. He hadn’t even realized that he had begun to tremble from the cold of the night.

“And what are we going to do? I- I need to go back," he insisted with a thin voice.

“What are _we_ going to do?” Wonho asked raising an eyebrow, emphasizing the plural form of the word. “I already told you, I'll take you to a safe place so you can clean your wound and rest. Then you’ll continue alone.”

“But-”

“I’m sorry. That’s all the help I can offer you.” Immediately, Wonho got up from the grass, shook his pants and watched him from above. “You should sleep a little longer, we still have a long way to go and we’ll get up soon.”

He went to the foot of the tree and lay down on the ground, leaving ChangKyun behind. His wound still hurt a lot, but the word ‘alone’ hurt even more. The idea of continuing his journey without company, having to hide from the Red Guard without any direction to follow, without any help, scared him to death.

He knew that Wonho was helping him when he didn’t have to, and that was enough. He couldn’t ask for more. Considering himself so helpless and useless made him feel bad and he urged the need to prove to himself that it didn’t matter that he didn’t count on anyone, he could go home on his own. He still didn’t know how, but he would.

_No. I don’t need anyone's help, I can go on alone. I don’t need Wonho._

He looked at his bandaged hand and ran his fingers through the cloth, noticing how his heart was beating like crazy against his chest for reasons he didn’t understand.

_I don’t need him..._

 

————— ♣ —————

 

Hunger and thirst made his stomach writhe inside him, begging ChangKyun for some food he knew he wasn’t going to receive. His head ached, he had stiffness all over his body and the palpitations of pain that the cut of his hand sent through his veins only made the punctures in his skull worse.

He wasn’t in the best mood.

They had gotten up early, as Wonho had warned, and now they were going through the woods where they had spent the night. Judging by the position of the sun, which was still coming out of the distant mountains, they must have been walking for about an hour: when would they find a trail of fucking civilization?

ChangKyun followed Wonho, who was moving a couple of meters ahead of him, and noticed the two knives in his belt. At least he could give him one, right? He might not know how to use it, but he would have something to defend himself with in case some emergency happened.

“When we’ll get there?” ChangKyun asked a while later, ducking his head to avoid some branches.

"Soon," the white-haired boy replied without turning around. ChangKyun feared that this ‘soon’ was actually a few hours to reach the safe place that Wonho didn’t want to reveal.

ChangKyun bit his tongue to avoid complaining and instead let out mentally an insult each time he took a step forward, or tried to distract himself by singing a song in his head. It helped him a little to endure the enormous fatigue that his small body was being subjected to: he couldn’t even go around the sports center of his school without sticking his tongue out, how was he supposed to put up with all that physical effort?

_This is it. I'm going to die in this forest._

When they finally reached the end of the forest, the hybrid stopped at the edge of a large slope in front of them. Wonho looked at him momentarily when he reached him to check that he was alright and stood watching the slope of land they had to descend: it was covered with stones and an occasional dead tree that grew at very steep angles.

ChangKyun could have sworn that fear momentarily crossed Wonho’s face at the height of the slope.

Without warning, he took ChangKyun's healthy hand, who became nervous from the simple action. He didn’t know why his heart was beating faster now. “You have to be careful, getting down here is dangerous, but it's the fastest way.” ChangKyun swallowed hard because of the extreme seriousness in Wonho's eyes and looked down. Did he really want to go down there? “Don’t let go of me.”

He didn’t have time to protest because they had already begun to descend taking very short steps. ChangKyun's hands were sweating, and he noticed how small pebbles were falling off the path they were tracing and rolling downhill to the ground, many meters ahead. When they had advanced a good stretch, the human's foot slipped and he let out a gasp, but Wonho caught him by the waist just in time and held him in place.

"Be careful," he warned him, breathing hard, holding him firmly. ChangKyun's heart was beating like crazy because of almost falling, but he was even more nervous when he noticed Wonho's body so close to his. He pressed his lips together and pushed him away.

"I'm fine, I don’t need your help," he said more coldly than he would have liked. The hybrid frowned and watched ChangKyun begin to descend by himself down the slope.

_That’s it, I don’t need his help. I'm fine alone. I can go down perfectly without anyone's help._

“Hey, ChangKyun!” he called with concern, going down with quick, short steps to try to reach him. “I told you it's dangerous!”

The black-haired boy ignored him even when Wonho grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Let go of me," ChangKyun demanded, looking into his eyes. He was tired, full of dirt, hungry, thirsty, with a terrible headache and most importantly: he didn’t need Wonho.

"I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, brat, but now is not the time to make a scene," the older boy hissed, trying to ignore the height they were at.

"I can go on _alone_ ," he said haughtily, emphasizing the last word and not feeling intimidated by the warning tone of the hybrid. Immediately afterwards, they tried to free himself from the grip by shacking his arm, but Wonho didn’t let go and their feet slipped from the sudden movement. ChangKyun was the first to fall backward on the ground, followed by Wonho, who hugged his body as they rolled down the slope.

Everything happened so quickly.

ChangKyun's back burned by friction against the earth, but his head was resting on Wonho's chest and protected by one of his hands. ChangKyun heard the whimpers he uttered every time his back hit the ground and closed his eyes tightly; they began to decelerate naturally until they stopped a few meters from the end of the hill.

The human was below him and opened his eyes slowly, separating himself from the warm chest and resting his head on the ground. He knew that Wonho was going to scold him for disobeying him and that's why he was afraid to face him.

But what he saw took his breath away: under the warm colors of the dawn and the cold atmosphere of the morning, Wonho tried to calm his breathing and touched his face gently using his fingers. His white, earth-stained hair gleamed in the dim light, his hat had surely been lost along the slope, and his dark eyes were peering anxiously at him, searching for some wound in his head.

“ChangKyun? Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” he asked uneasy, the urgency in his voice being obvious. The feel of his fingertips on his skin made him forget the great pain in his back and he was taken back to the tea fields of his grandparents, where that unknown figure had caressed his face in the same way.

ChangKyun nodded weakly, dazzled by his memories and the closeness of Wonho. Their bodies were pressing each other, the weight of the hybrid on him took his breath away in a pleasant, almost intoxicating way. The white-haired boy let out a sigh of relief and gave him an annoyed look seconds later.

“Fuck, you’ll end up killing us.”

Those simple words were enough to bring him back to reality, causing the throbbing pain to return without warning.

"I didn’t need your help," ChangKyun defended himself, looking away. He knew he should apologize for the imprudence he had committed, but his pride prevented him to do so. Wonho watched him incredulously; he leaned on his forearms wincing in pain to be able to separate a few inches from the human.

“Oh, really? You don’t need it? Let me remind you that it was _you_ who begged for my help in the first place, brat.”

"Stop calling me that," ChangKyun snorted, beginning to get upset. The day before he hadn’t had the courage to claim him for that nickname, but he was fed up. The pain in his head and the punctures in his whole body did nothing but increase.

“What do you prefer then? Stupid and clumsy baby?” Wonho countered, squinting, almost losing his patience.

ChangKyun opened his mouth to answer him, but noises in the distance caused Wonho to cover it with one hand and his ears were raised in the air, awaiting any danger that lurked. A flock of birds flew out from some distant trees and was lost in the sky, indicating that something had disturbed their rest.

"Soldiers are coming," he said after a few moments of interminable silence, staring at the source of the sounds. “They probably have already found the corpse and doubled the guards.”

The idea of the soldiers finding them and bringing him before the cruel king that Wonho had told him about terrified ChangKyun, who didn’t hesitate a moment to get up next to the older boy, both with winces of pain, and run down the rest of the hill. The hybrid took him by the hand to pull him and go faster; ChangKyun refrained from protesting, clinging to that hand knowing that his life depended on it.

They ran until they were out of breath, until their muscles burned and they resented the wounds and bruises, until their visions clouded. They went through the trees, avoiding the earth road that crossed them, and the sky gradually disappeared over the leafy branches. Each time the environment became darker and darker, and the vegetation was taking on colors that ChangKyun had never seen before.

Thousands of greens, oranges and yellows flowed in lines through the plants and leaves, as if they were arteries, giving light and life to the darkness of the forest. Pink and blue trunks, thin purple branches, flowers with patterns... ChangKyun could have sworn that the colors of the vegetation were changing as they went. That forest seemed to be an optical illusion strangely beautiful and grotesque at the same time.

Wonho pushed aside the colorful branches with his hand and pulled him, changing direction every few seconds, perhaps to mislead the soldiers, perhaps because they were lost.

The squeaking of insects and squawking of animals mingled with the voices of the soldiers, who were getting closer and closer. ChangKyun heard the beating of his heart rumbling in his head and squeezed Wonho's hand, praying that he knew where they were going.

"Shit, shit..." Wonho cursed, stopping once more only to walk again at a rapid pace, looking in all directions with despair in his eyes. Suddenly, the hybrid's face lit up and he ran with his few remaining energies, dragging ChangKyun in what seemed to be the right direction. Finally, they reached a clearing in the forest, where timid rays of sunlight peeked out from among the strange branches of the trees and illuminated a house.

And that house was totally destroyed.

They stopped right in front of the burned down dwelling and ChangKyun looked at Wonho almost out of breath, with the question 'what now?' etched on his face.

"No, fuck, no," the white-haired boy muttered, letting go of his hand, moving closer to one of the few blackened wooden pillars that remained standing, right next to the door that had been thrown down. There was a mountain of wood and tiles stacked in the center, totally charred: someone had burned that place.

Despair rose in Wonho's throat and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes, trying to calm down and not be vulnerable in front of the little boy. It was then that the soldiers entered the forest clearing and panic invaded ChangKyun.

"Won- Wonho..." he muttered, startled, backing up to stand next to him and clinging to his arm. The soldiers of the Red Guard approached with cynical glances, others frightened, and others with a fervent hatred that could materialize in the form of flashes and flames coming out of their eyes.

The hybrid slowly opened his eyelids again and turned decisively, standing in front of the human to protect him and unsheathing his kukri in a quick movement.

"Stay behind me," he told ChangKyun. His dark eyes analyzed the number of soldiers that were surrounding them and the weapons they carried: they were seven, and by the black color of their armor, he knew that they were of low rank, privates with luck. Even so, they were too many.

Wonho knew that it was a losing battle. But the way the trembling hands of the human clung to his jacket gave him the least courage to face them.

He had already lost two people who were too precious to him in the past, and for some reason, he couldn’t let that helpless child to have the same fate.

He just couldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! Here you have another update, hope you enjoyed it <333 so, KiHyun is the cruel king of Wonderland... it just suited him too much, sorry not sorry >:)  
> For the moment, i'll leave here an awesome wonkyun fanart my dear friend for this story!!  
> https://twitter.com/MacumiSketches/status/946010329850445824  
> I was so touched to see this beautiful drawing *sniffs sniffs* so just wanted you guys to see it too! 
> 
> We'll see soon on another chapter, lots of kisses and hugs!! <33333 (in the next one, another character --with a hat, and maybe a little bonkers-- will be introduced, so wait for it!)


	5. Tea time

ChangKyun never considered himself a coward. Fear was one of the many emotions he could feel, but he always kept them under control. He never let himself be carried away by feelings, not even love. But apparently, that had changed when he reached that twisted world.

Since he fell through that endless hole, he realized that he was a coward for hiding the feelings he had for the boy from the farm next door and for running away all the time. He was afraid of dying, and he was already getting tired.

Maybe he was also a fool, and that was what led him to take the other kukri that was in Wonho's belt and to stand in front of him, holding the knife with his trembling hands, but with determination in his eyes.

He wanted to show that he wasn’t useless or a coward. He could fight, he could do something to help instead of hiding like a scared puppy.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Wonho muttered without leaving his defense position. “Get behind me. _Now_.”

ChangKyun knew by his warning tone that he should obey him, and still he did not listen to him.

"I want to help," he said, trying to sound firm, pointing the weapon towards a soldier who was approaching them with a mocking smile on his lips.

“You're not helping, you're going to get us killed.”

Wonho was very angry, he was sure he was going to lecture him in case they got out alive from there. He swallowed when a soldier made a sign to another with his neck, who ran toward ChangKyun with a shout and with his sword in the air; the only thing that the human could do was close his eyes tightly, experiencing what in many movies happened when a character was about to die.

He saw his grandfather sitting in his chair, smoking a cigar in a cloud of smoke and watching him play with his toys on the living room carpet. He saw his grandmother scolding him for getting dirty on the crops. He saw his father concentrating on fixing an old clock so he could put it up for sale in the store.

And he saw himself running across the field towards a person who was waiting for him with open arms...

Just then, a metallic sound echoed in the forest clearing and his heart stopped. He didn’t feel the pain he expected and opened one eyelid slowly; Wonho was now in front of him, protecting him with one arm and ready to make a counterattack that he never carried out. The hybrid watched with wide eyes what had just happened in front of him: the soldier remained motionless, and had a knife stuck in the neck by which the blood slipped seconds later. His face lost its life and he fell to the ground like a sack of stones, being observed by the rest of stunned soldiers.

The forest clearing remained in a terrifying silence until it was interrupted by a laugh that echoed from the colorful trees. The soldiers looked frightened in all directions, raising their weapons to the unknown danger. Wonho sighed shaking his head as he recognized the laughter and relaxed his body, knowing what was to come.

“Do you want me to tell you a story?” The voice asked in an amused tone. Then, a knife flew through the place and caused another soldier to fall dead to the ground. The rest went together in terror before he spoke again. “About seven soldiers, well, now there’re five... went to a forest to stick their noses into other’s people’s business.” Another soldier fell dead with a strangled cry, taking a hand to his bleeding throat pierced by a small knife. “And, oh, shoot! Those four soldiers had the bad luck to run into a house they should never have found.”

When another soldier was killed by the unknown guy, ChangKyun clung to Wonho, having no idea what was happening.

"That house was a hat shop," he commented with boredom, before another victim collapsed on the floor. “The owner inherited it from his father, a poor crazy man obsessed with hats. Who the hell has a hat shop in the middle of a damn forest, you ask? I don’t even know myself, he was a lunatic.”

With another scream, now there was only one soldier standing, whose terrified expression made the attacker laugh.

“But the funniest thing of all...” he dragged the words, “is that his son was also entirely bonkers.”

Then a knife flew through the air and pierced the neck of the last soldier. ChangKyun swallowed hard, feeling how nausea rose from his stomach to his throat when he saw all the bodies lying on the ground. He thought that this could have been his destiny because of the folly he committed.

How could that person have killed seven soldiers in the blink of an eye, with such coldness?

Wonho took the kukri from his trembling hands and gave him a 'we'll talk later' look before putting it in his belt.

"Didn’t you tell me your father's hat shop was in the city?" Wonho asked raising his voice, crossing his arms. Then, a thin young boy emerged from among the colorful trees on the right, his reddish hair shining from the few rays of sunlight. His clothing could only be described as curious, for he wore a shabby green suit, trousers of the same color, and unpaired socks over these.

"I said many things," he explained, stopping next to the soldiers and crouching beside one. “Most of them were lies... but the fact that my father was crazy isn’t one of them. Luckily, he wasn’t insane enough to put his store in the middle of this forest," he clarified amused before removing the knife from his neck and wiping it with a handkerchief he carried in the outer pocket of his jacket.

“And where the fuck did that speech come from, MinHyuk?” Wonho asked, approaching him. The fear diminished a little in ChangKyun's body when he saw that they knew each other, but it was still present. He wasn’t able to take his eyes off the corpses and felt that he was going to faint at any moment.

"Oh, my dear, I was pretty bored," he answered, standing up, putting the knife inside his jacket and throwing the bloodstained handkerchief over the corpse's chest. “I prepared that little speech for when the Red Guard found me. Do you know how long it’s been since I have this fun?”

The hybrid frowned disapprovingly, but MinHyuk ignored him.

“And what kind of greeting is that to a friend you haven’t seen in weeks? You offend me..." Wonho opened his mouth, but was interrupted by MinHyuk's embrace. He sighed wearily and ended up smiling at the affectionate action. “Don’t even bother giving me one of your lectures, they bore me to death," he said slowly, separating from him, giving him a pat on the cheek. Finally, he noticed the human who hadn’t yet moved from his place. “My God, who is this cutie?” he asked enthusiastically, approaching ChangKyun and watching him from too close.

The invasion of his personal space made him twitch, and even then, he couldn’t get away from the slanted brown eyes that analyzed him almost with flashes of amber tones. ChangKyun should have been afraid of him, that person had just killed seven soldiers in front of their noses, without any kind of compassion, but his face with perfect features and his beautiful smile prevented him from fearing him completely. In any case, his aura was somewhat chilling.

MinHyuk circled around him and wrinkled his nose, catching a scent that caused his smile to widen.

“You smell like human! And like a dog that hasn’t bathed in months too...” ChangKyun didn’t have time to be offended by the comment since the boy began to touch the earrings of his ears and to inspect his neck with curiosity. “And you don’t have the mark of the Red Guard... Are you from around here, my dear? Or is this the first time you come to this world?”

"I..." ChangKyun muttered, overwhelmed by the amount of words the energetic redhead was spitting out.

“Your nose is peculiarly big, and your mouth is very small. Your eyes..." he mumbled, opening on of his eyelids with his fingers, "are brown, no doubt. This combination is curious, very beautiful," he concluded thoughtfully. Suddenly, his face lit up and he clapped his hands. “My God! Are you Wonho’s new lover?” ChangKyun's eyes widened and he opened his mouth, but no sound came out of it. “Oh, I knew it! You’re very cute... no wonder that rabbit has already laid his perverted hands on you," he crooned, putting an arm around his shoulders.

How was it possible that he spoke so much?

"MinHyuk, he's not..." Wonho said, trying to be patient.

“Have you guys had sex already?” MinHyuk asked, completely ignoring the white-haired boy, addressing the human with a mischievous smile. The question caused ChangKyun's cheeks to blush violently and Wonho's left ear to tremble in nervousness; his closeness was overwhelming him and the human finally separated from him, standing next to Wonho.

“We are _not_ together!” Both exclaimed at the same time. The two of them looked at each other for a couple of seconds, only to turn their faces away immediately.

"Okay, okay, you don’t need to be like that," MinHyuk said amused, turning around to the shattered building behind him. He rubbed his chin, as if thinking something, and picked up a piece of wood that rested on the floor just to throw it towards the pile of burnt remains that laid in the middle of the house.

"ChangKyun came from the world of humans," Wonho rasped, regaining his composure. “I'm just helping him.”

“So this is the first time you come to Wonderland?” MinHyuk asked, turning his neck towards them. ChangKyun raised his eyebrows, for he had never heard the name of that world, and couldn’t help thinking that it didn’t suit the place at all: it was twistedly ironic. He just nodded and MinHyuk returned all his attention to the house. “You picked a bad time to do it, my dear.”

“When has it been a good time, MinHyuk?” The hybrid asked with irony.

" _Touché_ ," he murmured, smiling before snapping his fingers. Before his eyes, tiles and charred wood rose in the air, rebuilding the house with something that could only be described as magic, and giving rise to a two-story wooden building, whose ramshackle roof was crowned by a chimney that was smoking. ChangKyun was speechless, while Wonho just crossed his arms at the incredible transformation of the house. “Awesome, right? Isn’t my house wonderful?” MinHyuk asked, turning around proudly.

"A cheap trick," the white-haired boy concluded.

"Call it what you want, but this 'cheap trick' has been fooling the Red Guard for a whole month," he said, approaching ChangKyun, who still couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. MinHyuk took him by the shoulders and led him to the wooden door, opening it to let him in. “Can you believe that a simple spell made them believe that I, the great and fabulous hatter, died in a terrible fire?”

"The mad hatter," Wonho corrected him from behind, receiving a ‘hush!’ from MinHyuk, who redirected his attention back to the little boy.

"Come in, my dear, you need a bath urgently.”

ChangKyun tightened his lips and looked embarrassed at his clothes; he was covered with dirt, mud and dried blood. He felt his stomach twist and bit his lip: he was very hungry, but he supposed he could take a bath first.

He turned one last time to the soldiers who laid in the middle of the forest clearing, guilt and nausea forcing him to stop looking. Witnessing someone's death was something he never thought he would live, but that world seemed to want to force him to get used to that degree of violence. Would the day when he wouldn’t blink when he saw someone die come?

ChangKyun doubted it.

The hatter hurried to take him up some steep and narrow stairs, without giving him time to appreciate details such as the wallpaper falling to pieces, or the nails that protruded from the ramshackle steps. Wonho was following them at a slow pace, staying behind at some point.

The floor of the corridor was tilted and creaked beneath their feet, the walls were joined to the ceiling in the form of vaults from which hung large rusted candelabra whose weight could throw the house down. The structure seemed to have been built by a beginner architect, or directly by some crazy person.

They stopped in front of a door through which slit small bubbles came out. MinHyuk told him that his bathroom was ready and patted him on the cheek before excusing himself saying that he should ‘clean up’ the outside mess and hum along the corridor. ChangKyun wondered why the hell he had the bathroom prepared before, preferring to ignore how he planned to get rid of the soldiers’ bodies.

ChangKyun sighed and, when he put his bandaged hand on the knob, he saw out of the corner of his eye that Wonho was walking down the hall. He couldn’t help but be nervous at the seriousness of his expression, and his heart skipped a beat when he stopped in front of him.

He turned slowly at the same time that the candelabrum that hung just above swayed squeaking and, despite the small bubbles flying between them, Wonho's face didn’t lose its angry expression.

ChangKyun pointed with a forced smile to the door of the bathroom, thinking that maybe Wonho wanted to take a bath first.

“I- I was going to go in now, but if you want to go first...”

His dark eyes narrowed and, without a word, he took a step towards ChangKyun, then another, and another one until he cornered him against the door. Although he would have liked to remain impassive, his heart was beating like crazy, and all he could do was shrink in place and stare at him.

“Do you know what could have happened out there?” Wonho asked frowning, his voice calm as opposed to his annoyed expression and his ears leaning slightly forward, perhaps in a reflex to intimidate.

“I…”

"No, of course you don’t," he interrupted, placing his index finger on his chest, not hurting him, but exerting enough pressure to express his anger. “You're just a brat who still doesn’t realize the magnitude of the situation. If MinHyuk hadn’t been there, you could have died.”

ChangKyun had realized the magnitude of the situation, he knew he could have died, he was very aware of it.

"But you were there," he argued, struggling to maintain eye contact.

“You said it yourself, I _was_. But I won’t be there for you anymore, from now on you’ll continue alone, I already warned you. And if you keep acting like a stupid and reckless child, you won’t last a day out there.”

He seemed really angry, but to be honest, the bubbles that burst softly against his cheeks and his ears took away many intimidating points from his speech.

ChangKyun swallowed part of his anger because he knew that Wonho was right. He didn’t know how to defend himself, all he had was his intelligence to get out of situations with impunity through conversations or deceptions, and it had become clear to him that it wasn’t enough to survive.

“Why do you care?” ChangKyun asked, not knowing when Wonho had placed his hands on the door frame. He realized that the hybrid was only a few inches taller than him, and the fact that his left ear trembled at the question confirmed his suspicion that it betrayed his nervousness. “I already got the concept. You won’t help me. So, why are you worried about what could happen to me?”

Wonho was momentarily speechless, his mouth ajar as if he were going to say something that had gotten stuck in his throat. In the end, ChangKyun wanted Wonho to continue accompanying him and help him to return home, he felt safe at his side, and the remote possibility that he cared for him told him that maybe he could convince him to continue lending his help.

"I’m- I'm not worrying, I'm just exposing facts," he explained with little conviction, leaning slightly toward him. ChangKyun's legs trembled, he was out of breath and noticed how his small, pale nose, slightly stained with earth, moved timidly. “And Minhyuk was right.”

“About what?” he whispered self-absorbed, having taken a few seconds to find his voice.

“Your smell. It’s quite terrible.”

All the tension of the moment dissipated and ChangKyun's cheeks blushed. The mocking smile on Wonho's lips made him quickly forget why they had had that little argument, and the only thing left was the shame for his apparent terrible body scent.

“You... you don’t smell like flowers either.”

Wonho showed an offended expression and, before he had time to protest, ChangKyun had already closed the door in his face. The bubbles fluttered with the force of the door slam and one sneaked into the eye of the white-haired boy, who quickly rubbed it and cursed at the sting before leaving indignantly through the corridor.

ChangKyun leaned on the other side of the door, squeezing his thin lips tightly to try to suppress his blush and the rapid beating of his heart. He desperately needed a bath.

 

————— ♣ —————

 

The dishes flew across the long table in the warm dining room and danced in front of the fireplace, levitating in a mass of different crockeries and cutleries of thousands of colors. ChangKyun watched everything open-mouthed, unable to believe that he was witnessing such witchcraft.

“How do you do it?” he asked self-absorbed, watching MinHyuk control the cups with his index finger so that they would stand in front of the three of them, at the far right of the table on the white tablecloth.

“My father taught me. He wasn’t just a poor madman who sold hats, you know? But I'm sorry, my dear, the talent of magic is something hereditary, family things.” ChangKyun felt somewhat disappointed, he would also like to one day be able to move objects with his mind, telekinesis had always been fascinating to him. But the disappointment didn’t stop him from continuing to admire how the colored napkins floated around him, a purple one having settled on his lap.

“Do you want to know a secret, my dear?” MinHyuk inquired softly, approaching him. ChangKyun nodded curiously. “I hate hats," he confessed amused, pointing to the red top hat he was wearing.

Well, that was kind of ironic.

"But if there's one thing I love, it's tea," he clarified, now ordering the teapot to pour the steaming liquid into the containers. “Wonho doesn’t like it very much, he's such a boring rabbit," he said, glancing at the white-haired boy, who was distracted by looking at his pocket watch under the table, and whose mention of his name wasn’t enough to divert his attention to them.

ChangKyun, sitting at the head of the table, turned his neck to his left to admire Wonho's wet hair and impeccably freshly laundered clothes. After taking the perfumed bubble bath and getting rid of that unpleasant sense of dirt he had been carrying since he fell into the swamp, both his garments and those of the hybrid had been magically washed and dried by MinHyuk. The piece of shirt that covered his right hand was changed by decent bandages, and the pain of the cut had diminished considerably after washing it.

Now they both smelled of shampoo, but the scent of incense and vanilla that Wonho still gave off stood out above the rest, even over the delicious smell of the coffee cake in front of him that he was dying to devour.

“Do you like tea, ChangKyun?”

The black haired nodded with a smile as he tapped the sugar cubes that floated just above him. How could he not like it if he practically grew up among the tea plants?

“Oh, tea is the best drink there is, right SungWoo?” MinHyuk asked, addressing the hare who was sitting at the other end of the table, far away from them. ChangKyun had avoided looking at the animal too much or making any comment about him, since he didn’t know if he was a hybrid that could understand him or even respond to him. The hare, who was dressed in a tailored suit and sitting as if he were a human, simply continued devouring without measure a piece of cake in front of him. “Oh my, how short on manners. He was a human before, you know? He wasn’t as lucky as me.”

MinHyuk moved his index finger and four cubes of sugar landed on his cup.

“Lucky?” ChangKyun asked, setting down the cup of the delicious green tea he had drunk in his place and taking the china plate with a piece of cake that the hatter was offering him, hoping that his desperation to eat it wouldn’t be very obvious.

Wonho tucked his pocket watch inside his maroon jacket, quietly listening to the conversation and occasionally sipping his tea.

“Don’t you see me? It may be off my rocker, but at least I'm still a human.” MinHyuk took a sip from his cup and grimaced in disgust; with a twist of his wrist, he tossed the contents behind his shoulder and ordered the teapot to refill the cup. “Too much sugar," he explained to the surprised human, who didn’t stop eating despite his strange action. “SungWoo, on the other hand, is now an animal from head to toe, courtesy of the Queen of Hearts," he continued, pointing to the hare with his chin.

ChangKyun stopped chewing when he heard that last sentence, curiosity again taking control. He had heard that name before, he knew she had been a governor of the place, but he never knew its origin.

“You mean the poker card?” he asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin, feeling much more relieved after having satisfied his stomach with some food.

MinHyuk's brown eyes widened before bursting into loud laughter, tapping the table and clutching his belly. Seeing that his laughter wasn’t going to turn off soon, ChangKyun looked at Wonho confused, who had rolled his eyes and rubbed his brow tiredly. Had he said something funny?

"Oh, ChangKyun, you're hilarious!" he said between giggles, wiping a tear from his eye. The little boy didn’t know what to say and he was ashamed, he didn’t understand why he had laughed at his question, and all he could do was look at Wonho, hoping he’d come to his rescue.

"It's not a joke, MinHyuk," explained the hybrid, stirring his tea with a spoon.

“Wait... haven’t you told him?” The hatter inquired incredulously, the smile completely erased from his lips.

“Only the essentials,” he clarified, diminishing the issue. True, Wonho had told him about the Queen of Hearts, and also about his son, but he knew nothing more about them other than his supposed cruelty to his subjects. “He doesn’t need to know everything," he finished taking a sip.

“He doesn’t _need_ to know everything? Oh my, look at this rabbit, playing the tough guy..." Wonho gave him a warning look over his cup and MinHyuk laughed, patting ChangKyun's arm. “Don’t pay any attention to him, I'll tell you about it.”

ChangKyun shifted back in his chair, listening with interest to whatever the hatter was going to tell him. MinHyuk took off his hat, leaving it at the side of the table and combing his red hair gracefully. He interlaced his fingers on the tablecloth with mystery in his eyes, which only caused expectation in his youngest listener.

"Fifty years ago, Wonderland was a peaceful place, where anyone who wanted to forget their world and anyone who was rejected by society could have a place to go without being judged by anyone," he explained slowly, as if he were telling a story. Wonho was leaning back in his chair, listening with seemingly little interest, and yet raising an ear to keep the thread of the story.

"For example, my father," MinHyuk continued. “I already told you, he was freaking nuts, he had no reason to stay in the world of humans, so he came here, where he had all the guarantees to live as a normal person. After all, in this world, madness is just a mood like any other," he said with a shrug. “Everyone had a reason to get here, but later, it was their choice to return to their world... or stay in this one.”

ChangKyun tensed at the mention of the reasons. He still hadn’t found his, and he had the feeling that it was something essential, something important to discover if he wanted to get out of there.

“Then there was an uprising, the king of that time was too conformist with what we had, too... simple. He wasn’t ambitious. But, guess who was?” MinHyuk raised the question as if he was waiting for an answer, so ChangKyun shrugged his shoulders shaking his head. “Yoo GyuRang. A peasant who proclaimed to know what the people wanted, and who rose up against the king to make Wonderland a kingdom united with the hearts of the subjects," he explained, holding a hand to his chest.

_So that's where the name comes from..._

“And well, she convinced practically the whole city to fight for her cause, and in the end she succeeded. She was an excellent queen, always listening to what the people had to say, always in favor of the needy.” Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes and his voice hardened, reaching the most intense part of the story. “But that was a farce, she only wanted the sympathy of her subjects to recruit them little by little into the Red Guard, an army that was growing bigger and she’d use later to snatch humanity of those she didn’t consider worthy of having it. Everyone who was summoned to the palace were left with three options: the Red Guard, to become a hybrid or the guillotine, at their own free will.”

A chill ran down ChangKyun's spine, who shrank in his chair as silence filled the warm dining room. He glanced at Wonho, who was staring at the cup and his hands were closed in two fists; it seemed that the coldness with which MinHyuk was narrating all that wasn’t pleasing him.

"Now it's her son who's in control," MinHyuk commented casually, removing tension from the atmosphere that had been created. An amused smile crossed his lips before speaking again. “And let me tell you that his obsession with cutting heads runs in the family.”

He said that last thing as if it was funny, but the way Wonho’s whole body tensed told ChangKyun that he shouldn’t laugh. MinHyuk looked momentarily at his friend, slightly losing his smile before continuing.

“There are a few other humans like me who have been fleeing and hiding for a long time in order to continue conserving our freedom, but, you know what? We can’t continue like this forever..." he added with sadness. ChangKyun didn’t know if it would be convenient to say something to comfort him, since he hadn’t lived it and had no idea what it must have been like to be running away all his life.

“The hybrids are also tired of this whole situation. Maybe they’re still animals, but they’re willing to do something to be free and stop living in fear.” Suddenly, MinHyuk's face lit up and he smiled widely. “And that’s why we’re organizing a rebellion!”

“MinHyuk!” Wonho shouted, raising his ears in disbelief at the information he had just given the human. Because of the anger in his voice, ChangKyun supposed that MinHyuk had just told him a secret that shouldn’t be rebelled. The hatter clicked his tongue and threw him a piece of biscuit, which bounced off the hybrid's chest and only made him even angrier.

“Oh shut up, will you? You don’t scare anyone. And what's wrong with telling him? He could even join us, right, my dear?” he asked enthusiastically, grabbing his hands. ChangKyun didn’t know what to say and stared at his hands, whose fingers were covered with rings and his manicured nails were painted in black.

“Uh, I...”

"No, he's going home, he won’t fight in any rebellion," Wonho snorted, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.

“But what's the point? He can’t go back, KiHyun cut the connection with his world eight years ago. You can enter, but you can’t go out," the hatter refuted with annoyance. “And maybe, if we kill him, you’ll be able to go home," he explained hopefully to ChangKyun, without letting go of his hands.

That possibility caused his heart to be agitated by nerves. Could he really go home if he joined them?

“Are you sure about that? Do you think that by killing the king the connection with his world will be restored from one day to the next?” Wonho asked distrusting.

“I don’t know, but it's probable. Don’t you want to go home, ChangKyun?” The dark haired boy swallowed and nodded. He was desperate to go home, reunite with his father and get out of that nightmare. “Then, you must help us," MinHyuk insisted with determination.

ChangKyun looked at Wonho, who sighed and fell silent, his dark eyes fixed on his teacup. Nobody said anything, the only thing audible was the crackling of the fireplace that illuminated the dining room, until at last ChangKyun broke the silence, giving his final answer.

“I’ll do it.”


End file.
